If You Have a Problem, Ask Everyone Through InnoCentive

OIL John Davis had an idea for how to keep it unfrozen in storage tanks.

Now he has applied that knowledge to a seemingly unrelated problem thousands of miles away. He figured out that devices that keep concrete vibrating can be adapted to keep oil in Alaskan storage tanks from freezing. The Oil Spill Recovery Institute of Cordova, Alaska, paid him $20,000 for his idea.

The chemist and the institute came together through InnoCentive http://www.innocentive.com/ , a company that links organizations (seekers) with problems (challenges) to people all over the world (solvers) who win cash prizes for resolving them. The company gets a posting fee and, if the problem is solved, a “finders fee” equal to about 40 percent of the prize.

Steve Kagan for The New York Times

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/science/22inno.html?_r=1&oref=slogin